And for that reason, he couldn't risk another night by her side. He couldn't bask in the sweet enticement of her warmth, ignore the longing in her eyes, listen to her half-sobbed pleas for him to touch her, without crumbling in his resolve. Just the scent of her hair drove him mad. Eden was, and had always been, the one temptation that could vanquish him.
But by God, not again. This time, he would not fail. He loved Eden too much to burden her in death as he had in life.
He would not—could not—risk spilling his seed in her.
Steeling himself against the raw, raging torment of leashed passions, he turned to face his priceless gift, his one blessing, and pretend he was too strong to need her.
"Yes, Eden?"
She twisted her apron. The habit was an endearing one, all the more so if she caught herself doing it, because her cheeks turned rosebud pink. But the habit also betrayed her inner agitation, and it made him want to drop everything, to wrap his arms around her, murmur consolations, and kiss away her fears.
If only he dared.
"This is your chance, you know," she said quietly. "To heal your grievances with your brother."
He drew a long, steadying breath. "It's not that easy."
"Why?"
"Rafe would rather gloat."
"I didn't get that impression."
"You don't know him well."
"Michael."
Again, he froze in midturn, cursing his inability to ignore the entreaty underlying that single word.
"Four months ago, you told me you'd always wished you had a brother. He's here now. Don't let pride stand in the way of your reconciliation."
Michael's throat constricted. "Rafe didn't come for reconciliation. He came for Sera."
"Is that so wrong?"
"Yes! He has no right to take her away."
Michael ran a rough hand through his hair. He hadn't meant to sound peevish. But how could he make Eden understand? While Rafe disappeared for years at a time, becoming heroic in his absence, Michael had shouldered the responsibility of raising his younger siblings. If familiarity bred contempt, then imagine how discipline was viewed through the eyes of a child. Sera had often threatened to run away after Papa's death and live with Rafe. Her outbursts had hurt Michael deeply. He'd done everything he'd known to be a good guardian. It galled him to think that Rafe could show up anytime on a whim, expend minimum effort, and convince Sera to leave with him.
Just as it galled Michael to see how easily Rafe had wooed his wife's esteem.
"Michael, a man can change in ten years. You're not even giving Rafe a chance. Besides, if I understood you correctly, you were as responsible as your father for driving Rafe away."
He scowled. That particular truth didn't make welcoming Rafe home any easier. "So you're taking his side?"
"What I'm taking is a God-given opportunity to help you heal old wounds."
"By singing my brother's praises?"
She pursed her lips. "You're being contrary. On purpose."
"I'm being contrary? By my estimation, my prodigal brother has been home less than an hour, and already he's turned you against me."
"That's ridiculous. If anyone has turned me against you, it's you."
He stiffened. Color bloomed in her cheeks. He suspected she hadn't meant to let the truth slip out in quite that way.
"So." He struggled to keep the hurt from his voice. "You grow weary of the vows you made to an invalid?"
"Oh, for heaven's sake. You're not an invalid. Why do you persist with such nonsense?"
"It is hardly nonsense, madam. I have four medical opinions, including my own, that confirm the inevitable."
"So you'd rather be right than be healthy, is that it?"
"What the devil are you talking about?"
Never in his life had he seen a sadder smile. It clawed at his heart, shredding the iron defenses as easily as if they were a net veil.
"We've lived under the same roof for four months. And in all that time, I can't remember you seeking out pleasure. I can't even remember the last time you laughed. You've grown angry, bitter, and full of self-hate. Clearly, you don't want to heal, Michael."
"What?"
She sighed, dropping her gaze to the floor. "Not every illness resides in the body. But even if, as you believe, yours is strictly physical, how many times have you denied yourself treatment? How many times have you refused my tonics and my baths, or ignored Sera's pleas to let an older, more experienced physician examine you for—?"
"Let me get this straight," he interrupted harshly, feelings of futility spiraling dangerously close to rage. "You're saying I have allowed myself to get weaker, to suffer vertigo, to lose the sensation in my legs and arms?"
Her chin raised a notch. "Yes. I am."
He blinked, disbelieving. "That's not only untrue, that's... cruel."
"No crueler than you are to yourself."
"My God, Eden, I have done everything humanly possible to heal this plague!"
"You lie to yourself. You've done nothing but prepare to die."
The accusation, as gently as it was spoken, slammed into his gut with the force of a sledgehammer. He reeled, thinking she must have learned somehow that he'd paid a visit to the stone carver.
"I have taken steps, yes, to make sure that you and Sera are provided for—"
"That's not what I mean. You stopped living a long time ago. I don't know what it was, exactly, that killed your spirit. But you allow yourself no kindnesses. You suspect gestures of caring. You drive yourself past exhaustion. You refuse love. These are the things that siphon away life, Michael. The physical illness you're experiencing is just another symptom of the problem."
An odd tingling crawled across his skull. Every inch of his flesh prickled with goosebumps. He ignored them. "So now you're saying I deliberately got sick? That I brought upon myself an illness that couldn't be cured?"
"In a manner of speaking. It's all a matter of perception. You tend to see the worst in a situation. But what if this illness were the answer to a prayer? What if it were your greatest teacher, coming at a time when you most needed to rediscover the value of living? We all have to die, Michael. Dying is easy. Living's what's hard. It takes courage."
The raw truth of her words ripped at his chest. In that moment, his wound went so deep, he couldn't begin to separate his rage from his fear, his sense of betrayal from his self-contempt. All he knew was that his wife, the woman he loved enough to sacrifice his every need, had called him a coward.
He spun on his heel.
"Michael, wait." Eden hurried after him. "Where are you going?"
"I am not in the habit of being called a craven, madam."
"For heaven's sake, is that all you heard me—"
The front door slammed, cutting her off. She winced. The windows rattled around her.
Damn him.
She battled tears of frustration, watching his stiff, ground-eating stride carry him past the frost-coated hedgerows, through the white picket gate, and out of her sight. Perhaps out of her life.
Was he going to Bonnie?
She smothered a sob. She couldn't live like this any more. She couldn't hurt like this anymore.
Michael turned her away, denying her any part of his inner world. It killed her a little each day to watch him grow more distant, more disinterested in their marriage. From the beginning, their union had been doomed. Perhaps she should have listened to that inner voice that had urged her, on Independence Day, to flee Blue Thunder and never look back.
But she'd wanted so desperately to help him. She'd hoped that somehow, some way, she could make him feel love again and that her love would make him happy.
Even that dream had finally died with her suspicion that he'd been unfaithful. She no longer believed Michael wanted happiness, at least not with her. In her company, he preferred to wallow in grief and nurse old wounds. A spirit couldn't thrive in the darkness with which he armored himself. As much as she loved Michael, perhaps the tim
e had come to... love herself.
Dashing away tears, she gathered her skirts and climbed up the stairs for a traveling bag.
If she hurried, she could have her belongings packed by luncheon.
* * *
He was back.
Observing the tow-headed longrider below, Collie shivered on his belly and clung to the frosted pine limb. He cursed Kit McCoy for returning after six weeks, rather than disappearing for good.
Collie's flannel shirt front was damp, thanks to the way his own heat steamed through the ice crystals, and his gloveless hands were raw with the bite of wind. Still, he held on to the swaying bough, doing his best to keep his breaths from puffing like Injun smoke signals and giving away his hiding place. He knew, with the instinct of the hunted, that Kit McCoy and his cigarette-smoking cousin were looking for him.
The coons whickered nervously as the men swung down from their horses; the rabbits scampered to the corners of their cages. Collie narrowed his eyes and flattened himself further. His heart pounded so hard, he imagined the icicles shook with each beat.
"Well now." Kit's unbuttoned duster flapped like buzzard wings as he strode past the coon cages and the rickety trough that Doc Jones had built to bring water from the stream to the clearing. "Ain't this quaint. Boxes of bunnies."
"Looks like the boy's been raising them," Chance said, strolling in a casual half circle—the same circle that Collie's boots had traced only minutes ago, before he'd heard the horse snorts and the cracking branches and had loosed the hounds, hoping their romping would wipe out his tracks. Now they were somewhere off in the woods, snuffling for sport.
Kit's attention was fixed on Millie, the plumpest doe. "Looks like dinner to me."
Chance propped his shoulder against Collie's pine and flicked ash into the carpet of needles. He said nothing as his cousin flipped the latch on the cage and pulled out the squirming rabbit.
"You checked the shack?" Kit crooned, stroking Millie's ears. She started to relax. She started to trust him.
Chance grunted in the affirmative.
"Little bastard." Kit cuddled Millie to his chest. "He's got weasel blood, just like his pa."
Chance blew out a long, leisurely stream of smoke.
"Hell, Chance. What are you waitin' for? Find the brat's tracks."
"Already did."
"Yeah?"
Chance jerked his head in the direction of the stream. "Took off through the water."
"You mean you lost him?"
"He's probably freezing his tail off downstream."
"Christ, that's all we need. The kid dies from pneumonia before we can learn where his pa hid that payroll loot." Kit scowled. "I'm sick of this town. Why did Black Bart's trail have to lead us here? There ain't a damned thing in Blue Thunder worth stealing. We could be having a lot more fun—not to mention a lot more money—if you had let me rough up the kid."
"Is that the kind of man you want to be, Kit? A bully who beats up little kids?"
Kit scowled. "Hell, Collie was born old. 'Sides. I tried to do him a favor. Tried to give him a family—"
"Even I don't want anything to do with our family."
Kit sneered. "So why don't you go back to Colorado? Oh wait. Now I remember. 'Cause you let the wrong bounty learn there's a reward on your head."
"I can't help it that Taggart recognized me. And it's not my fault that Jasper Hatfield couldn't take a whupping like a man, either."
"I ain't arguing with you. But now that Taggart knows who you are, he's gonna track your ass 'til he gets you in his sights. The smartest thing you ever did was come home to kin. We'll see the bastard has an accident."
Chance grimaced, averting his eyes. "I didn't come home for the feud. I came home for Jillie's wedding. Now that she's safely on her wedding tour, I'm heading for Mexico."
"Mexico? What's in Mexico?"
"Rosita. And a new life." Chance's smile was mirthless. "The Hatfields and McCoys have been feuding since the war. I'm sick of it. I want out. I want to raise a family in peace."
Kit snorted. "Shit. If you get any softer, Ma and Jillie will have to spread you on toast."
"At least you still have a ma and sister to eat toast with."
Kit rolled his eyes. "Fine. Go to Mexico. I'll find Black Bart's loot myself. And I'll spend it by my lonesome, too. Where do you reckon Collie's hiding?"
Chance shrugged.
"Sera would know." Kit's smile oozed with new cunning. "Sera knows everything that goes on in this pissant town."
"That old taxidermist is a better bet."
"You mean Gunther?" Kit frowned, and his hand hovered in midstroke above Millie's head. "How come?"
"Where do you think the boy gets his pets?"
Understanding dawned on Kit's coyote face. "Reckon ol' Gunther did have a heap of rustling trouble awhile back. And for once, nobody thought to finger you or me." He smirked. "Tell you what. I'll talk to Sera. You talk to Gunther."
"I figured you'd want to call on Gunther," Chance countered, "seeing how he made you a laughingstock last week."
Kit's eyes narrowed. "I got bigger fish to fry than some two-bit card cheat. 'Sides, I can't do every damned thing myself. The sooner you help me find Collie, the sooner you can vamoose to your senorita."
"I didn't realize I needed your permission."
"Don't start," Kit snapped. "You owe me. You owe me for busting you outta that Virginia jail before some Hatfield could string you up."
Chance scowled. He flicked more ash into the frost-coated needles.
"You know," Chance said, changing the subject, "with a ribbon and a bow, that rabbit would make a nice gift for a sweetheart."
"You mean Sera?" Kit snorted. "That skirt can't kiss worth shit. And her cooking's even worse."
"Yeah? So why do you care so much that she sent you packing?"
It was Kit's turn to scowl.
Suddenly his hand dropped. Millie screamed, flailing, until her neck snapped with an audible crack.
Kit smirked at the limp carcass in his arms. "I love it when the bitches scream."
Collie's eyes burned with tears of outrage. If he hadn't clamped his teeth over his sleeve, he would have retched all over Chance's slouch hat, ten feet below.
"Christ, Chance. You gonna stand there all day?" Kit was tying Millie's carcass to his saddle horn. "Get yourself a rabbit, or get your ass to Gunther's."
Chance dropped his smoke, rubbing it out with his boot toe. As he did, his gaze rose slowly, unerringly, pinning Collie like a striking panther pins its prey. Chills scuttled up and down Collie's spine. When the elder McCoy turned, padding past the cages, Collie's heart hammered so hard, he felt dizzy. But Chance didn't stop. He didn't open a cage. He headed straight for his horse.
Every muscle in Collie's length was shaking as the outlaws spurred their geldings and rode away. His tremors had nothing to do with the cold, though. Hatred seeped into his bones, burning hot enough to repel an alpine blast.
Something changed in him that day. Something hardened. He vowed to make Kit McCoy pay. He vowed to keep him away from Sera.
Chapter 13
Streaks of rose-tinged tangerine fanned across the western sky, heralding the end of day. Michael barely noticed. He stood where he'd been standing for the last hour, his fists shoved into his coat pockets, his breaths curling around his head like miniature geysers. The temperature was sinking with the sun, but Michael couldn't feel the change.
Or maybe he didn't care.
He simply continued to stare at the tombstone, bleached white by the years, deepening to a luminescent gold in the twilight.
HERE LIES GABRIEL JONES.
BELOVED SON AND BROTHER.
HEAVEN KNOWS A BRIGHTER SMILE.
Sera had insisted on the epitaph. She'd gone toe to toe with Papa for it, the only time in Michael's memory that she had fought Jedidiah Jones and won.
"Gabriel didn't understand scripture," she'd argued. "He hated stuffy old churches and prayer. Stop tryi
ng to make him an angel, Papa. Just let him be Gabriel."
Later, Sera had confided to Michael that Gabriel, in all his otherworldly glory, had floated down to sit on her bedpost the night of his death and had told her that heaven was a happy place where everybody smiled. "He likes it there," she said, beaming. "He said to tell you not to cry."
Sera had been ten years old at the time. Of course, Michael hadn't believed her and her visions.
His throat aching, Michael wondered how his life had gone so wrong. How had he lost his brother's friendship, his sister's respect... his wife's love?
I'm no damned coward.
Still, there were times when he envied the people who died in their sleep, never suffering the pain or loneliness of a lingering illness.
Maybe it's true, he thought ruefully. Maybe in some ways I do wish for death.
The gravel path crunched behind him. He tensed. Usually he was immune to flights of fancy. Nevertheless, he felt every hair on his scalp rise. Boot hill wasn't the most comforting place for surprises.
"Figured I'd find you here."
He recognized Collie's mutinous tenor before he spied the boy over his shoulder. Grim and pale, Collie stood silhouetted like an avenging fury against the backdrop of sun, dogwood, and neatly sculpted graves. He was coatless and gloveless, despite the garments Eden had purchased for him, and he gripped the barrel of Claudia's shotgun in a white-knuckled fist.
"Collie," he greeted cautiously. Careful what you wish for, Jones.
The boy narrowed his stare. Michael couldn't ever remember seeing that particular gleam in the boy's eyes.
"How come you always come here?" Collie demanded.
Michael turned slowly to face him. Was it his imagination, or were Collie's cheeks moist with tears? "I come to visit Gabriel, mostly. Sometimes my mother. Don't you ever visit your pa?"
"Hell no. Pa ain't lying in some cold, lonely patch of ground. He's racing with the wind and howling at the moon. I take my pa with me wherever I go."
Michael averted his eyes. Racing with the wind sounded like paradise compared to rotting in a pine box for eternity. The trouble was, he couldn't believe in paradise, much less in God. And he'd never found any tactile proof to convince him that he possessed anything remotely resembling a spirit—despite Eden's belief that he'd killed it.
His Wicked Dream (Velvet Lies, Book 2) Page 26
